Susan B. Anthony was born 15 February 1820 in Adams,
Massachusetts. She was the second of seven children of Lucy
Reed and Daniel Anthony. Her father was from a Quaker
background and believed in the equal education of his
daughters and his sons. His successful cotton manufacturing
business prompted a family move to Battenville, New York in
the summer of 1826. In the summer of 1835, Anthony obtained
her first teaching position, and in 1839, she moved to
Hardscrabble, New York, and continued to support herself
through teaching. In November of 1845, she settled in
Rochester, New York, which she considered home until her
dying day. From 1846 to 1849 she was the headmistress of the
female department at Canajoharie Academy in Rochester, New
York.

Susan B. Anthony's name is synonymous with women's rights
and the suffrage movement, but her activism began with
participation in the Temperance and Abolitionist movements of
the mid-nineteenth century. In 1848, Anthony joined the
Daughters of Temperance, then founded the Woman's New York
State Temperance Society in 1852. By 1856, Anthony was
William Lloyd Garrison's primary representative in New York
for the American Anti-slavery Society.

Susan Brownell Anthony at age 36, 1856

It is without a doubt that Susan B. Anthony was most
passionate about the cause of women's rights. Securing the
right to vote for women became her life's work. In 1848, Jane
Hunt, Mary Ann McClintock, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, and Martha Coffin Wright organized a women's rights
convention in Seneca Falls, New York. Although her father was
there, Susan B. Anthony did not attend this historic event.
She met Stanton in 1850, and they became lifelong friends and
partners in the endeavor to guarantee women's rights. Both
women maintained a very high-profile as leaders of the
suffrage movement. In 1854, Anthony organized the first
Women's Rights Society in New York State. In this same year,
she collected signatures successfully petitioning the New
York State legislature for an extension of the Married
Women's Property Act, which was granted in 1860. In 1866, she
collected signatures petitioning the U.S. Congress for
women's suffrage.

Anthony and Stanton both maintained their commitment to
the abolitionist cause as they increased their activity in
women's rights organizing. In 1863, they formed the Women's
National Loyal League, which demanded the abolition of
slavery by constitutional amendment. However, at the end of
the Civil War, their opposition to the Fourteenth and
Fifteenth amendments, which guaranteed black male suffrage
but excluded women, caused the loss of some strong
abolitionist allies. Opposition to Anthony and Stanton's
controversial position, as well as to their methods of
achieving the vote, caused a twenty year schism in the
women's suffrage movement. The result was two separate
suffrage associations, which maintained similar goals but
employed very different strategies. Lucy Stone founded the
American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), which supported
the Fifteenth Amendment and continued to allow men's
participation in the Association. The AWSA attempted to avoid
all "irrelevant issues" that might alienate support for their
cause. They focused on the suffrage question and sought the
ballot on a state-by-state basis. In 1869, Anthony and
Stanton founded the National Women's Suffrage Association
(NWSA). It was to be a "women only" organization and Stanton
was elected the President while Anthony served as the Vice
President.

Unlike the AWSA, the NWSA was not afraid to create
controversy or draw attention. Its primary goal was to
guarantee a woman's right to vote in the form of a national
constitutional amendment. They acknowledged women's rights as
encompassing other women's issues such as birth control,
divorce law reform, and prostitution. They advocated for the
organization of working women, criticized the subordinate
role of women fostered by the church, took up a critical
discussion regarding the societal double-standard, and
addressed the issue of discrimination in employment and pay.
NWSA publicly supported the notorious Victoria Woodhull,
whose disregard for convention and eccentric behavior
outraged many people. Association with such an extremist
brought a fair amount of criticism to the NWSA.

NWSA also used relatively radical methods for achieving
its objectives. Public protest and "overt actions" were
staged by its members on a regular basis. Anthony was
directly involved in many controversial actions taken by
NWSA. In 1872, Anthony was arrested, convicted, and fined for
illegally voting in the Presidential election. On 4 July
1876, she staged a suffrage protest at the Centennial
Celebration being held in Liberty Square, Philadelphia.
Anthony was constantly at the front lines in the battle for
woman suffrage. She toured the country giving speeches and
passionately rallying support for her cause. By 1890, the
tensions that caused the division within the suffrage
movement had eased, and the AWSA and the NWSA reconciled.
They merged to form one organization called the National
American Women's Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Susan B.
Anthony served as president of NAWSA from 1892-1900. She
continued to organize and lead the national grassroots
movement. She extended her work further by contributing her
knowledge and effort to the International Women's Suffrage
Movement. She traveled to Berlin, Germany in 1904 to help
found the International Woman Suffrage Alliance. Anthony
participated in the successful campaign to open the
University of Rochester to women (1900). From 1881-1902, she
initiated and published the first four volumes of History of
Women's Suffrage.

Susan B. Anthony died 13 March 1906 in Rochester, New
York. She was eighty-six years old and had devoted over half
of her lifetime to the women's suffrage movement. On 26
August, 1920 the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified. This
federal legislation secured women's right to vote in every
state in the country, and it was referred to by some as the
Susan B. Anthony Amendment. In recognition of her incredible
contribution to the woman suffrage movement, various states
have declared 26 August or 15 February---her birthday---as
Susan B. Anthony Day.